


i scramble for the light to change

by sapphicish



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post 3x14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 11:46:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13612710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicish/pseuds/sapphicish
Summary: Linda thinks about Lucifer, thinks about the way he stepped close, thinks about the way his cologne blended with his smooth voice when he said the words. She's just an innocent woman who needs help. Just an innocent woman. Just an innocent. Just innocent.Or: Linda has her first session with Charlotte. It goes...all right.





	i scramble for the light to change

**Author's Note:**

> can we get a round of applause for uhhhhh more linda martin and charlotte richards therapy sessions in future episodes of lucifer (or i SWEAR TO GOD)

“I'm sorry.”

Even knowing that this is Charlotte Richards in front of her – the Real Charlotte Richards, not the Mother-of-Angels-creator-of-everything-bad-in-the-world-probably Charlotte Richards, the Charlotte Richards whose eyes and face are softer and whose flesh and veins contain the same red blood as every other human on the planet rather than ethereal, burning light, the Charlotte Richards that isn't the goddess of all creation that put her in the hospital – Linda can't stop her hands from trembling when she looks at her.

It's _fine,_ she tells herself, again and again and again until she half-believes it. It's fine. This is not that same woman. This woman, for example, has a quieter voice; softer and gentler around the edges, less harsh, less commanding. She doesn't glare, and she doesn't stare at Linda like she constantly expects something of her. She fidgets. She will look out of the window, clearing her throat awkwardly, shifting her weight, leaning from one hip to the other, doing things Linda's torturer would never have done.

And – _and_ – she doesn't bleed light. That's the most important thing. Linda has proof, proof the moment the pin was stabbed through Charlotte's hand and she bled rather than burned everything down around them both, and it isn't some sick farce like Linda's had nightmares about.

But – 

But.

Oh, it would be good if Charlotte was different in more than those ways. Better if she was a brunette, or a redhead; shorter, paler or tanner, with a different voice, maybe an accent. Better if her eyes were darker. Brown, maybe. Better if she was an entirely different person altogether. Better if her name wasn't Charlotte at all, even.

But none of that is possible, and she is Charlotte, blonde and blue-eyed, and Linda thinks about Lucifer, thinks about the way he stepped close, thinks about the way his cologne blended with his smooth voice when he said the words. She's just an innocent woman who needs help. Just an innocent woman. Just an innocent. Just innocent.

So that's how they end up; here, on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, the clock ticking. A beam of sun lights up Charlotte's hair, and she turns her head at a certain angle, and Linda looks away because she's beginning to think about how the light there looks oddly like the light that she once saw pouring out of Charlotte's abdomen, blinding and bright and too much.

No, she tells herself. (She tells herself a lot of things, lately.) No.

“Sorry for what?” she asks, pouring Charlotte a cup of coffee without thinking. Her hand shakes a little and the cup rattles against the saucer, but Charlotte doesn't look at that; just at her. She remembers Charlotte's preferences – from Before, during the few times she'd met, the woman would look at her and demand a cup of coffee, black, two sugars, because Linda didn't serve the proper espresso that she liked and Charlotte found that irritating but was willing to _settle,_ she'd said.

That was back before Before, of course – before the attack, when she stared at Charlotte a little starry-eyed and thought that she, while incredibly intimidating and too ethereal and a little rude, was not someone that would _harm_ her.

She slides the coffee forward in Charlotte's direction, smiling politely with the offering as she waits for the response that doesn't seem to be coming.

Charlotte stares at her, stares at the coffee, clears her throat. Linda knows she's made a mistake in the moment before Charlotte speaks, but it doesn't click until she does. “I don't drink black coffee.” She sounds confused, she sounds apologetic, she sounds understanding and in pain and so many things all at once. Linda can sympathize.

Linda does sympathize.

“...Of course,” she says. “Milk? More sugar?”

“Yes, please. One more.”

When the coffee runs beige, they sit in silence and Charlotte doesn't drink and Linda watches her—patient, waiting.

“I'm sorry,” Charlotte says.

“You've said,” Linda says gently. “What for?”

“For whatever I...for—I hurt you, before—before. Before. So I'm sorry for that. I don't know what I did, or how, or—or why, but I know I did. Everyone I run into, they seem to know me or recognize me, and they bring up things that I don't remember happening, situations I've never been in, conversations I've never had, people I've never met. And no one...no one looks at me _fondly_ for it. People are scared of me. My husband wouldn't let me around my children. My children don't _want_ to be around me. I reach for them and they...” Charlotte's voice catches. She sucks in a sharp breath, eyes glittering.

Then she closes her eyes, and she doesn't look like Charlotte Richards, Goddess of All Creation at all, and even less so when her shoulders sink – and less and less and less as she puts her head in her hands, as she makes a noise in the back of her throat like a whimper, as she curls her fingers through her hair.

Linda doesn't want to be soothed by it all, but she is. She nudges the tissue box forward wordlessly and waits. This she can do. This she has always done.

Charlotte doesn't reach for a tissue. Instead, she breathes in silence for a minute, for two, and then she straightens up and wipes briefly under her eyes, careful of her makeup. “I'm sorry.”

Linda offers her a tissue, smiling kindly. “Don't be. It doesn't matter now.”

Charlotte winds the cloth around her fingers, dabbing under her eyes. “But it does. It matters to you, to Lucifer – who I know called me his mother at least twice – to...to Ella. To my children, to my husband. To everyone. But here I am, not knowing any more than I knew the first time I woke up in the sand, and...maybe it should matter. It should, if I hurt so many people, even those closest to me. It should, and it does. But if I don't remember, then—then—“ Her fingers tremble in the air as she gestures. “What does that make me? I know I was...gone. I know I was in some other place, somewhere so terrible. I was in Hell. But I come back, and I can't remember _anything._ It's just this...blank space in my head, this gap, this _chasm._ I have a scar. I don't know where it came from, or why, or how. It hurts sometimes. And it's my only...it's the only evidence that I have to prove to myself that I'm not going completely insane.”

“Scar?”

Charlotte presses a hand over her stomach, and something runs cold in Linda. _Oh,_ she thinks. “Oh,” she says, soft, but Charlotte hears it – Linda knows she does, because her eyes dart up. They look at eachother, and then Charlotte says nothing, and her shoulders drop that much further.

“So it's just. That. It's just this, all of this.” Charlotte takes another deep breath. “And it isn't like I can talk to anyone about it. Just...Lucifer. And now, you. And that's why I came here, I suppose. I'm hoping to...to—“

“Put the pieces together,” Linda finishes for her.

Charlotte smiles, like she's almost relieved. “Yes. That's it. And...well. Anyway. I wanted to say I'm sorry, and I wanted to say thank you. For...agreeing to see me, even though we...apparently have a past. I know it isn't easy, and I'm grateful. I am. And I promise I won't...do anything to you. Whatever I did.”

“I know you won't,” she says. The sun shines in across the side of Charlotte's face again, but Linda doesn't flinch this time – it's softer, smoother, less harsh. Just like Charlotte herself. Something about that is comforting.

“Can you...” Charlotte swallows. “Will you tell me what I did? To you?”

“No,” Linda says immediately, watches the droop of Charlotte's head, the slow clench of her jaw, the rapid blinking of her eyes. “I don't think it would be good. Not for you, and...not for me. But maybe someday.”

“Someday,” Charlotte echoes. “All right. I suppose I can settle for that. It's farther than I've ever gotten since I...woke up, anyway.” She stands, smooths her skirt down self-consciously, doesn't look at Linda. “I'll say it for you, doctor—our time's up. I'll see you again next week.”

Linda doesn't point out that they still have ten minutes left, or that Charlotte hasn't taken a single sip of her coffee, or that Charlotte looks like she might break down again the moment she closes the door behind herself. Instead, she stands after her and opens the door for her. “I'll see you again next week,” she says, gentle, like a promise. _I'm not scared, I won't be scared, you aren't frightening me, you—Charlotte Richards, innocent—deserve better._ That's the promise. She isn't sure if Charlotte can hear it, but the woman's eyes linger on her for a moment.

“Thank you,” she says, and steps out.

The light shifts after her, clinging to strands of her hair, to the side of her jaw, a stretching beam shut out by the closing of the door.

Linda turns, leans back against the door, closes her eyes, and breathes for the first time.


End file.
